New Beginnings

Hello all! Spring is here! No... for real... it's been like 75 degrees! We'll be starting up the garden again and we're taking new members. If you're interested, please email elmctgarden@gmail.com or call (732) 835-8344 ((732) 835-VEGI).

I'll be taking a back seat in garden admin because of this...

He's one month old now. :) You'll certainly see us in the garden this summer, but Michele, Elm Ct. Garden co-founder, will be taking over the blog and email and membership.

Happy gardening!

Shannon

Sco's ring

I am in love with Sco's ring - not as much as I'm in love with him, but the ring is awesome.

We found this Japanese artist living in Brooklyn who makes these rings and other jewelry on NOTCOT.org, a wonderful blog of art and design that Sco looks at just about every day. Her name is Sakurako Shimizu.

Sakurako takes a voice recording and then laser cuts a hole through metal in the shape of the sound wave form generated by the sound recording program. She makes necklaces of giggles, bracelets of bell chimes, and wedding bands of a spouse saying "I do" or something else.

Giggle Necklace

I Do Wedding Bands

We recorded my voice saying "I love you" and sent it in an email to Sakurako. We met with her in Brooklyn to discuss the ring and which metal she should use. She is so sweet. Apparently, we're the first people for whom she's made jewelry that she's actually met. She bought us brunch, too. :) We were smitten with her (Sco's cringing at the use of that word, I'm sure) and her jewelry, but I only just learned that she's socially responsible, too! She only uses 100% recycled gold and precious metals from Hoover and Strong. And her prices are very reasonable. I just loved the whole experience.

Our rings together on a funky flower

Eco-wah?

Have I told you about our plates? When my caterer said he might not have the staff to use real dishes, he suggested disposable plates. I said I wanted to have a "green" wedding. He said, "No problem. We can get green plastic plates." Yeah... not what I meant. We started thinking of eco-friendly, disposable options (though it did occur to me to ask people to bring their own plates.) We looked into bamboo plates since bamboo (a grass) is much easier to replace than trees, but it didn't seem to be all that biodegradable. Styrofoam was obviously not an option. Plastic didn't seem very good either. Enter Verterra.


Their plates are pretty, made from renewable resources, chemical free, and are fairly traded.


After collecting fallen leaves that would normally be burned, Verterra applies steam, heat and pressure to transform the leaves into durable products that will naturally compost in 2 months.

VerTerra products are made in South Asia, where employees receive fair wages in safe working conditions and are provided access to health care.

Raindrops keep falling on my head...

But that doesn't mean my eyes will soon be turning red. Crying's not for me.

I don't know the rest of the song.

I know things can change and their forecast only goes until just before my wedding, but The Weather Channel says...



I hope it doesn't rain. I do love the rain, but...

My little ring

My ring is back! Yay! What? Oh, you didn't know it was gone? Pardon? Oh, you didn't know I even had one? Oh, yeah. I do. I mean, I was going to tell the whole engagement story and all about the seven rings, but... What? Um, yeah. Seven. I'll get to it eventually. It's a long story.

In the meantime, back to my ring's return. One of the little pearls fell out, so I had both pearls replaced (so they'd match... duh!). I just got it back today.

I put it inside the sample ring for Sco's ring. (That's another long story that I'll get to eventually.)

Look! Sco wears a 13. I wear... a 3.5. That's right. Three and a half. Babies have fingers that small.


It's one of the many reasons I'm making it do double duty - one ring for both engagement ring and wedding ring. Adding just about any kind of band you can imagine looks stupid on my freakishly small fingers.

Fire!

My hanging jar lanterns with candles have been approved! I met with the grounds keeper at the site today expecting him to take one look at my sample lantern and go, "You want to put THAT in MY trees?!? Fire in a jar held up by twine?!" Instead, he said, "Oh, that? That's no problem. I'll even have my guys hang those up for you." SWEET!!



Sco and I tested them out recently and they look gorgeous!! I jumped around all giddy then and today. I'm glad there's more giddiness than screaming and pulling my hair out. Over all, there has been little in the way of panic during this whole wedding planning process.

Happy! :)

Basket o' Flops

Yesterday, I thought, hey, I need a basket of cheap flip flops for the dance floor in case any ladies' feet get tired from dancing in heels. (I am definitely not the first to think of this.) I went to Michael's. They had them on sale for a dollar a pair! And their baskets were on sale! I got 15 pairs of pink flip flops and 2 green baskets with my store credit. (That was from buying tons of silk flowers when I thought I was going to make my own dress and cover it in flowers and then came to my senses and they said "Uh, store credit.") It took 20 minutes to get in and out of the store with what I needed. Only about 2 hours from the moment I decided I wanted to do it and that was because I was still at work when I decided that.

Here they are in the back seat of my car!


Sorry the picture is so crappy - camera phone, shaky hands, you know...

The quality of the shoes is pretty decent. I don't know what I'll use the little basket for yet - bathroom amenities, maybe?

Happy!